The Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Friday arrested a total of 12 officers and employees of the State Civil Supply and Consumer Protection Department in the multi-crore scam. The officers were arrested on charges of possessing unaccounted cash accumulated by them, an official press release issued here on Friday stated.
The arrested persons include Manager of State Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Department, Raipur Headquarters Shivshankar Bhatt, Raipur District Manager Teekamdas Heerchandani, Junior Technical Assistant (Raigarh district) Kshirsagar Patel, Junior Technical Assistant (Jagdalpur district headquarters) Satish Kumar Kaivartya, Bilaspur District Manager Kaushal Kishore Yadu, Company Secretary Sandeep Agrawal, Surajpur District Manager (In-charge) RN Singh, Kanker District Manager Ashok Soni, Assistant Accounts Officer, Raipur Sudhir Kumar Bhole and Branch Manager of State Warehousing Corporation (Balod district) Dilip Kumar Sharma, it stated.
Two contractual employees RP Pathak and Devendra Singh Kushwaha (Assistant Managers, Quality) also figured among the arrested persons. They have been booked under Section 109 (Punishment of Abetment), 120 (B) (Criminal Conspiracy), 420 (Cheating) and relevant Sections of Prevention of Corruption Act 1988, the press release stated.
In the ongoing budget session of the State Assembly, the State Government had informed that during these raids cash amounting to Rs3,64,63,320 and unaccounted assets worth Rs2,74,10,620 were seized from the officials of the Department. Subsequently, a total of 18 officials and employees of State Civil Supply and Consumer Protection Department were suspended while services of two contractual employees of the Department terminated in this connection. Besides, an Officer of the State Warehousing Corporation was also suspended.